posted by 尼古拉斯桑 on May 7, 2013 | 5 comments
It would be cool to work David or Brendon into a dialog where we hear them speak Chinese. I understand the obvious pedagogical reasons for only using native speakers, however I think one could work a nonnative speaker in organically simply by adding a 老外 character. I know this seems like an appeal to novelty but I think it would be beneficial to showcase a fluent nonnative speaker of Chinese every once in a while.
@Brendan & trevelyan,What do you say? 接招吗？ :)--Echoecho@popupchinese.com
This is Brendan's coy way of asking for a raise.... I'm not actually against it either. I just don't want the dialogues to be bad or uninteresting.
Anyone with ideas please do feel free to submit them to us by email (service@popupchinese.com). Sometimes we have a lot of trouble coaxing good stuff out of our voice actors on particular ideas, so even if it is a great idea, no promises on delivery. But we can try.
drummerboy on May 14, 2013 | reply
Ok, so having just met Sidney Rittenberg the other day I do have an idea. You could construct some sort of comical script with Mao, Zhou En Lai and Sidney. They used to all play cards together and I think there is a script idea that would involve Brendan playing the part of Sidney and Gao (if he's still around) playing the part of Mao.
Perhaps I'll set up a Kickstarter page to get this rolling. I actually found a youtube clip of you (David) and Echo being interviewed by Xinhua (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2zgUq1fytw)so you seem pretty damn fluent to me (not that I ever questioned that you were ;)). As far as ideas go, I think there are some areas of satire to explore as it pertains to Chinese perceptions of Americans and Canadians (a country north of Montana). You guys have explored this in some depth in previous dialogs where the voice actors slow...down...the...language once they discover someone is a foreigner. Also, the pitfalls of transliteration from English to Chinese is a rich playing ground for shtick.